


bittersweet creature

by dancinbutterfly, suzukiblu



Series: mad elephants [8]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alpha Soldier: 76 | Jack Morrison, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha/Omega, Alternate Universe, Blackwatch Reaper | Gabriel Reyes, Fantasy Gender Roles, Long Lost/Secret Relatives, M/M, Non-Explicit Sex, Omega Reaper | Gabriel Reyes, Strike-Commander Soldier: 76 | Jack Morrison
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-13
Updated: 2020-01-13
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:13:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22233100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dancinbutterfly/pseuds/dancinbutterfly, https://archiveofourown.org/users/suzukiblu/pseuds/suzukiblu
Summary: They started in the living room arguing about Jesse, which was fucked up and awful and also kind of amazing.
Relationships: Reaper | Gabriel Reyes/Soldier: 76 | Jack Morrison
Series: mad elephants [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1114917
Comments: 16
Kudos: 177





	bittersweet creature

**Author's Note:**

> We've been sitting on this one for a little bit and finally got it all polished up, so hope you guys enjoy!

Jack is beautiful on his knees. He gives over so pretty and he can take whatever Gabriel throws at him but mostly he gives. He gives until Gabriel is screaming—thank God for soundproofed quarters. He looks up with his pretty blue eyes as Gabriel milks his knot and slaps his face and says, "Please, sir," and Gabriel has to take more. 

They came together hard but when they're done, they find themselves slammed back together wherever they've landed—in this case in a mess of sweaty, sticky, fluid-covered limbs upside down on their bed. Finally. They started in the living room arguing about Jesse, which was fucked up and awful and also kind of amazing. 

They haven't had arguing-about-Jesse sex since their twenties. They used to have it constantly when he was little. Should Jesse go to daycare somewhere besides his mother's place? Should he be allowed to have sugar so often? Should they be bringing him to non-SEP doctors for checkups? It felt like every parenting argument ended in sex back then. As awful as Gabriel feels about everything—and he does, there's a sick feeling that won't go away thinking about Jesse on base but unwilling to go near them—the fact that he's there to argue about, breathing, sulking, being difficult, is its own miracle. Jack is right about that.

It's why Gabriel slapped him around as hard as he did before finally relenting and sitting on his dick. He doesn't actually like it when Jack is right and he's wrong even if it does make the sex amazing. 

Jack is right a lot because he's brilliant and insightful and normally, Gabriel loves that about him. Not right now though. Which is what got them into this not-really-that-bad situation in the first place. 

"Gabe," Jack drawls, hazy and come-lazy. "Can we talk about it now?"

"Shut your mouth or I'll have to fuck it again."

"I'm open to that, but later?" Jack offers gamely. "We need to talk first, sweetheart." Then Jack rolls onto his side to curl around him, draping his arm and leg over Gabriel's chest and hip. It's possessive and anchoring and also kind of gross with all the fluids but he doesn't shrug Jack off though maybe he should because he just doesn't want to. He's too tired, the kind that comes from deeper than his bones, and Jack puts him back in his body like this. 

"Okay," Gabriel groans. "Fine. Talk." 

“He’s been asking questions about us,” Jack says. “That’s a good sign.” 

“Sure it is,” Gabriel says darkly. “And it’s been how long since he’s talked to either of us again?” 

“Three weeks on Tuesday,” Jack says, because of course he knows it down to the day. Gabriel thinks he knows it down to the _hour_ , himself. Maybe even the minute. “You heard what kind of questions he was asking, though. He’s intimidated.” 

“Our pup thinks we’re _intimidating_ ,” Gabriel says. 

“That is one of our specialties,” Jack points out wryly. He runs his hand up his chest. Gabriel tells himself it’s annoying, though obviously it’s very much the opposite of that. Jack being _right_ is definitely annoying, though. 

“You’re taking all this way too well,” he says, not for the first time in the past three weeks, and Jack’s eyes dim a little. 

“I have to,” he says. “I’m going to fucking scream, otherwise. And maybe abuse my position to ruin a few foster families’ lives.” 

“Only a few?” Gabriel says. 

“More than a few,” Jack says. “I think he’s just trying to get to know us. Just . . . in a very roundabout way.” 

"My pup's doing fucking recon." Of course he is. Why wouldn't he when they're right here, waiting for him with everything he could ever want to know? 

Jack smiles into his collarbone. "I think he gets that from you."

"Oh, bite me."

"Yes, sir."

And he does. Which. Okay. Yeah. Any other time, that would be promising as fuck but Gabriel isnt as young as he used to be and he can't pull his brain away from the thought of Jesse slinking around base, asking questions with his big eyes and not liking the answers. "I just keep thinking about what he must think of us." 

And there's a lot to think. Failures. Monsters. That they didn't want him. Gabriel pushes his face into Jack's hair and breathes his thick Alpha scent to try and keep from doing some of that screaming Jack was talking about. 

"I want to know everything and nothing at the same time. Jesus."

“Yeah, same here,” Jack says. “I’d really like a better idea of what he’s thinking so far, if nothing else.” 

“Probably nothing good,” Gabriel says. Jack nuzzles into his throat. It’s not as comforting as it should be. 

“You don’t know that,” he says. “He could be thinking anything.” 

“ _You_ don’t know _that_ ,” Gabriel says. They snatched him out of the system and locked an ankle monitor on him and have only _barely_ gotten away with keeping him so far, to say nothing of how hard he was riding the kid in the beginning, so of course all Jesse’s going to pick up is the negative shit. 

“I’d rather he was running around asking all our friends about us than sulking alone in his room,” Jack says. “At least this way he’s getting used to the base.” 

“I want him used to _us_ ,” Gabriel says. 

“Baby steps, sweetheart.” Jack lifts his head and presses his mouth to the corner of his jaw. “He’s had it rough. Of course he doesn’t trust us yet. I bet he wouldn’t trust anything good.” 

“Apparently that’s what you get for thirteen or fourteen years in the system,” Gabe mutters bitterly, and Jack’s fingers tighten on his ribs. 

“Ten,” he says. 

“What?” Gabe frowns at him. 

“Ten years,” Jack repeats. “That’s how long he was in the system.” 

“. . . Jack, that would put him at _thirteen_ when he ran off,” Gabriel says carefully. 

“Mm,” Jack says. 

_“Jack.”_

"Hm?"

Gabriel pushes up on his elbows so that he can look down at his mate. "Jack, he would have been a _baby_."

Jack keeps his eyes locked on his chest hair. That is just never a good sign.

"Jack." Gabriel's throat feels raw, trying not to picture his pup, thirteen, skinny, and no doubt already presenting if Jesse was anything remotely like he was, on the street and _alone_. "Jack, what could have been so fucking bad he'd run away at _thirteen_ goddamn years old?"

“I’m going to guess it had something to do with the foster father who caught him with another O and kicked the shit out of him,” Jack says. He manages to keep his voice even, which is something Gabriel can’t imagine doing and _has_ to be a side effect of all the times he’s had to talk about tragedy and disaster in front of the entire world. 

“Fuck,” Gabriel says, his teeth gritting. Jack still isn’t looking at him yet. 

“Some A kid in the house interfered,” he says. “Who knows what would’ve happened if she hadn’t.” 

_“Fuck,”_ Gabriel says. 

“It was bad enough she had to pull a gun on the man. Cops got called,” Jack says. “Jesse got rehomed and bolted pretty quick after. So either that’s why he ran, or the next place was even worse.” 

Gabriel hisses, less on purpose and more because picturing that just made his hackles rise and teeth bare. Jack looks at him, and looks so _pained_. 

“So yeah,” he says. “He doesn’t trust good things.” 

“Christ,” Gabriel says, practically reeling with fury. He wants to find that man and kill him. He wants to find that man and _hurt_ him. “I’m so—what kind of fucking _bastards_ —” 

He can’t even figure out what he wants to say. He’s picturing his pup chased out onto the street at fucking _thirteen_ , except he can’t even picture it accurately because who knows what Jesse even looked like at thirteen. Not him or Jack, obviously. Not ever. But smaller, for sure, smaller and weaker and an O on his own without any littermates or parents or protection or _anyone_. No wonder he wound up in Deadlock. He must’ve fucking _leaped_ at the chance. 

Gabriel tries not to think about the kind of things that could’ve happened to Jesse on the street. He’s been worried enough about the things that might’ve happened to him in Deadlock, and knowing now how foster care went for him and that he was someplace even less safe than _Deadlock_ so _young_ . . . 

He’s trying very hard not to think about it. He can’t _actually_ go murder that years-gone foster father, for one thing, and if he thinks about it too much he might. 

”Gabe. Hey, Gabe!”

“What?”

“You’re hurting me.” 

Oh. Shit. One of his hands is looped around Jack’s wrist and is squeezing so tight the skin beneath it is changing color. That sort of thing hasn’t happened, well, since he was pregnant actually. He releases Jack quickly and presses an absent apology into the abused skin with his lips. 

“This is a fucking disaster.”

“Your observation skills are one of the things I love about you, sir,” Jack agrees, with a dark humor that maybe six people on earth know he possesses. 

“How are we supposed to deal with that shit?” Gabriel says. 

“I think it’s Jesse’s shit to deal with,” Jack says, finally sitting up beside him. “We just have to prove nothing like that’s happening to him again.” 

“Then how do we _prove_ that,” Gabriel says. Jesse’s been on his own since he was fucking _thirteen_ , and probably wasn’t getting much help before that either. He probably wouldn’t know what to do with them if they spelled it out for him. 

They basically _have_ spelled it out for him, and yeah, he clearly doesn’t know what to do with them. So that’s a thing, definitely. 

“Just . . . do the best we can, I guess,” Jack says, laying a hand on his arm. “It’ll sink in eventually.” 

“That’s assuming he lets it sink in,” Gabriel says darkly. Who knows what Jesse’s willing to accept or not. 

“He’s a kid, Gabe, not a video game,” Jack says. “There’s no cheat code to make sure he reacts the way we want him to react.” 

“No, but we can put him first.” That’s where they fucked up during the war. They were soldiers first and people second and it cost them their pup and Jesse an entire life. 

“Can we do that?” Jack asks. 

“Doesn’t really matter. We are.” Gabriel can feel his jaw clenching. “And if you can’t you need to tell me now.”

“No. I am. I already have. I’m just afraid of what it’s going to do to Overwatch.”

“That’s what Ana’s for.”

“It’s not, sweetheart.”

Gabriel drops onto his back with a thud. “It is now. Talk to someone about getting her a raise.”

“Did you know some people think I’m in charge around here?” Jack muses. 

“I’ve heard rumors,” Gabriel says, looking up at him. Jack looks back with a faint smile; he looks tired, and Gabriel feels it. He thinks about Jesse’s file and if he wants to read it. He feels like he should, like it’s his responsibility to know all the things that happened to him because they weren’t there, but he also doesn’t want to push the kid again, doesn’t want to demand too much. Still . . . “Is there anything else in that file I should be worried about?” 

“I mean, how worried are we talking,” Jack says. “Because that could take a while.” 

“I’m _hoping_ the foster father was peak worried,” Gabriel says, and Jack hums quietly to himself. 

“I think so,” he says after a moment. “File gets pretty patchy after that, of course.” 

“Of course,” Gabriel sighs. It’s probably four years of nothing but arrest records and escapes. 

“You could always read it yourself. I left it on my pad if you want.”

“He probably already thinks I have, doesn’t he,” Gabriel says resignedly. 

“Probably a safe assumption,” Jack agrees with a nod. 

“Does that mean I _should_ , though?” Gabriel says. Just because Jesse might think he has doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do. 

“I don’t know,” Jack says. “I’ve read most of it. It mostly just made me angry.” 

“I don’t think I could get angrier,” Gabriel says, and Jack smiles mirthlessly at him. 

“I believe in your capacity for it,” he says. “It’s misdemeanors and felonies, wanted posters, trouble he had in school. A bit of medical stuff. He broke his arm in two places when he was twelve. Almost got expelled twice for fighting. Robbed a train six months ago and burned down a bank last year. You know, the usual teenage shenanigans.” 

“Very funny,” Gabriel says, eyeing Jack’s pad where it sits on the nightstand. He shouldn’t be going back and forth this much on the subject. It shouldn’t be this hard to decide. 

Maybe it’s just that he’s already made so many mistakes with the kid. 

“How was it? Reading it?”

“Honestly?”

And he hates that Jack has to ask that but sometimes he can’t take it. Sometimes the hard truth does more damage than help. He’s weak and he knows it, but right now he needs to know. “Yeah.”

“Awful. Could have been worse though. Seeing everything we missed cut and dried is—" Jack stops and drags in a ragged breath. “He doesn’t have anything on his record that says he hurt anyone else, though, and he’s so fucking smart, Gabe. He and that Ashe woman turned Deadlock from a two-bit operation into what we found pretty much single-handed. It’s impressive shit for anyone, let alone a kid with only a seventh grade education.”

“Criminal masterminding runs in the family. Guess he’s a real Reyes then, whether he knew it or not.”

Jack goes stiff against him and not in the fun way. “Actually . . .”

“What?”

“His list of aliases before McCree. Hang on.” He grabs the pad off the counter and flips through it. “Here, look. I can’t believe I didn’t notice before.”

"Morgan, Renaldo, Masterson, Ray, Morrissey, and Reynolds," Gabriel reads off slowly. It's a shorter list than he would've expected. "That's . . . did he do that on purpose?" 

"I don't know," Jack says. "It can't have been. Right?" 

“He told them.” The thought makes Gabriel sick but it can’t be avoided, staring down at that list. Even the name he used now, McCree, it had whispers of them in it. Jesse tried as best a child could to hang onto them whether he knew it or not. “Alpha, he told them we were his parents.”

“I know, baby.”

“Did they even _try_.”

“The CFS social worker triaging his case put it in his file with a request to investigate but no one did anything with it.” Jack laughs and it’s an ugly sound. “There was a war on and the supervisor never kicked it to a judge. Half of them were KIA anyway.”

“And what, it just sat there all those years?” Gabriel says bitterly. It might be almost understandable, but he can’t let go of his anger that easily. He knows what kind of shit slips through the cracks in wartime, but he doesn’t care—this isn’t something he can forgive. “No one ever fucking _looked_ at it?” 

“I don’t know,” Jack says. “They must’ve thought it’d been dealt with already, if they did.” 

“I’m so _angry_ ,” Gabriel says, his grip on the datapad tightening. Those names keep sitting there, half-mocking. 

He wonders how long it took Jesse to forget them. He wonders how many times he must’ve asked for them before he learned asking wouldn’t get him anywhere. He’d been a smart kid. It probably hadn’t been many. 

"I think my heart's too broken to be angry." Jack says dully. "Like being this sad crushed the anger out of me. I know it's there, I remember it, but I can't reach it through this goddamn grief." 

The thing about Jack is that sometimes he says shit that feels like he's punching Gabriel in the fucking chest. Usually it'd be kinder if he did, just laid one right on him. He doesn't. He never does. He just says what he's feeling and lays Gabriel out with his words instead. That shit is why the UN gave him Overwatch. He's a statesman in his bones and it is devastating to live with. "That's not helpful."

"Was it supposed to be?"

“Apparently not,” Gabriel says, looking at Jesse’s list of aliases for one last long moment. He never changed his first name, just the last one. What even _is_ his last name, according to this file? It said “Jesse McCree” on the front of it in big broad letters, but who knows what it thinks it is legally. No wonder the kid refused to wear an ID badge without “McCree” on it, if people have been pushing a name he didn’t want on him since he was three. “I can reach enough angry for both of us. All these fucking years. Fucking _years_.” 

“Yes,” Jack says. Gabriel almost throws the datapad across the room. Would, if it were his and not Jack’s. Instead he puts it to sleep and sets it aside. “Gabe . . .” 

“I want to find that foster father, and I want to ruin his life,” Gabriel says. 

“Jesse might appreciate it, but I doubt the brass would,” Jack says. 

“Do I look like I fucking care, Jack?” 

"Not listening to him is what got us here in the first place."

"No. The fucking omnics dropping a goddamn building on my brother is what got us here in the first place. War crimes got us here. Me being pushy is just . . . it’s not even frosting on this shit cake, Jack. It's just a sprinkle." 

"Well then let's not funfetti this, okay? At least he's talking to Nicky on the regular and, okay," They both wince because of all people fucking Nicky de la Cruz is the one Jesse has latched on to, Christ. "That's not the best option he could choose but at least he picked someone who likes us, who knows how much we love him. That's a big thing, Gabe. I think." Jack bites his lip and despite all the shit, Gabriel can't help but want to bite it himself. He _wants_ Jack even when things are falling to shit and nothing else makes sense. 

“Maybe,” he says instead of doing that, because things _are_ falling to shit and nothing else _does_ make sense. It could be worse, definitely. Jesse _is_ asking about them, and he’s asking their friends and not people who hate them, and he hasn’t shot anyone or made any literal escape attempts or anything like that. As far as they know, anyway. They’re lucky, frankly, given his history. But still—“We don’t know.” 

“We’ll find out,” Jack says reassuringly. “We just have to be patient.” 

“It’s been fourteen _years_ , Jack,” Gabriel says. “How patient can I be?” 

“A little bit more,” Jack says, squeezing his arm. “We can handle it.” 

“ _You_ can handle it,” Gabriel mutters. “ _Nicky_ can handle it. I am not handling it.” 

"I'm not handling it, Gabe. I've been spiralling into this for . . . I don't know. What day is it?" 

"Thursday."

"Fuck."

“Fine, so neither of us is handling this,” Gabriel says. “So _Nicky_ is the responsible adult in this situation.” 

“Jesus,” Jack mutters. “What’s Jesse going to think?” 

“That Nicky’s the responsible adult in this situation, was I unclear?” Gabriel says. “Which I’m sure he’ll take no bad lessons from at all.” 

“Jeeeesus,” Jack mutters again, throwing an arm over his eyes. 

"Get back on me. I don't want to think about this until I absolutely have to."

Jack doesn't laugh, exactly, so much as huff a little noise of amused assent into his neck when he should have said “yes, sir”. Whatever. They're both disasters right now. Gabriel isn't going to be picky if Jack keeps going just . . . like . . . that . . . and actually gets his brain to shut the hell up, if only for five minutes.

**Author's Note:**

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